Whilst I’ve been away The Real World +200 Starfighter Contest became a thing. The premise is to build a minifig scale starfighter type space vehicle as it might appear 200 years hence in the year 2217. What this translates into is that the models can’t be complete flights of fancy, they’re going to need to feel grounded in something vaguely plausible. So heat shields and RCS thrusters are in; warp drives and deflector shields are out. Here’s an opening gambit by Alessandro.

There’s no visible cockpit, because of course in this “real world” future space is vast and a simple window pretty pointless for identifying your targets at ranges that must be thousands of kilometers. It’s also bristling with RCS thrusters and according to the schematic below is armed with a rail gun and lasers; both plausible near-future weapons.

The black and white colour scheme also feels nicely functional, like it’s a distant ancestor of the space shuttle. The little orange highlights really pop out and there’s loads of slickly implemented greebling. We’ll bring you more Real World Starfighters as the contest continues.

Some time back I blogged a spaceship that was clearly based on a lifting body concept, like a more advanced futuristic take on the aborted X-33. Builder Nick has taken that concept to the next level with his SAB S-44 Kestrel, evolving a similar shape into a further-future Starfighter.

It’s the black and white colour scheme that roots the model firmly in a plausible future. In fact, the covering of tiles seems to echo the tiles that made up the heat shield of the space shuttle. The shaping is also excellent, with an almost seamless approach resulting in a really impressive wedge shape across multiple axes.

There’s some great details too, and I love the RCS thruster clusters built into the corners; and the Nexo Knights shield pieces used to build the engine exhausts; which is reminiscent of a stealth fighter.  Extra marks for the cool loadout shoot too, and for using a Classic Space canopy.